


Safest Place I’ve Ever Known

by EllieCee



Category: Zayn Malik (Musician)
Genre: F/M, Mentions of Anxiety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 18:17:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7372441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieCee/pseuds/EllieCee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thrown into the new, exciting, and scary new chapter of his life, everything is different, but that doesn’t mean he can’t find home there either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safest Place I’ve Ever Known

**Author's Note:**

> Another Zigi one! This one is drabble-ish and written on a whim after having another Zigi-fueled conversation with my friend.
> 
> This is un-beta'ed!

Sometimes he’d wake up and think he was in Bradford - that any minute now, the smell of his mum’s breakfast would hit his nose and Safaa would scream his name through the open crack of his door.

Sometimes he’d wake up and think he was in London even, that he’d wake up to Hachi licking his face, and Perrie would still be there, warm against his side. 

It was like that for the first few months in LA, and it was a rude awakening sometimes. As sweet as it felt to be free, to turn the page, he was suddenly thrown into the unsettling, the new and the unfamiliar. 

It’s always too hot in LA and he didn’t understand why people iced their tea. He never did.

He found himself less shaky when he took his medication, but he still felt like the floor tilted beneath his feet. He’s by himself now, he can’t just drive back to Bradford. He can’t go back to London. Not now. Not when they’ve got pitchforks waiting for him.

So sometimes when he wakes up and thinks he’s still in Bradford, he lets the thought linger.

 

* * *

 

She came along. Her laugh was soft and deep and she smelled like vanilla. 

“Gigi Hadid,” Shareena had said, “Another good candidate for the your music video.”

Then it was much more than that. She smiled so big after their first kiss that he thought his knees would give from the look she was giving him.

She murmured sweetly in his ears when they were in bed, her thumbs always somehow finding a way to rub soft circles against his skin. 

She could tell when anxiety hit him, he never had to say. She could tell with one look and she never questioned.

“Call me if you’re feeling bad okay?” she’d whisper in the early morning before she headed out to a shoot, “Leave a message if you want. I’ll answer whenever I can.”

He loved the way she laughed so hard she fell and rolled on the carpet of her apartment. 

“Z, minions don’t have goatees,” she chortled, followed by a snort. He couldn’t help but laugh too as she took the marker from his hand and drew a jagged eyebrow above the minion’s one eye.

“Now he has a unibrow,” she stated. 

“How is it a unibrow if he’s only got one eye?” he asked, amused.

She looked at him again, then fell into a fit of laughter before falling into him, face in his chest. He laughed along again and wrapped his arms around her, pressing a soft kiss on her head.

He’d never felt this content. 

 

* * *

 

 

Sometimes he’d still wake up thinking he’s in Bradford. London, not so much, especially when he feels Gigi’s arm wrapped around his waist, her chin resting on his shoulder. 

He hates how hot LA is. He hates how Americans ice their tea. He wants to smell his mum’s breakfast and hear his sister’s scream at him. He misses London rain.

But now, even in the too-hot LA, he sometimes takes a sip of Gigi’s iced tea (maybe he likes it too, he’d never admit it) and snuggles up close to her, listening to the hum of the AC, wondering when he could go home in peace. 

Not now he knows. 

But Gigi is comfortable, and Gigi is love. Gigi is laughter and Gigi is understanding.

Gigi is his new home. 


End file.
